nine2five 2,2 Runway Bride
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Chuck's at home, searching for his relationship's Achilles Heel with Morgan's help. Sarah's in Milan, keeping Carina in line during Fashion Week. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N **A little bit late, I wanted to keep to a 5-day posting schedule if I could, but last weekend was Comic Con here in NY. I didn't go but my friend did, and she took my DVDs to get signed. Unfortunately the line was a mile long for Yvonne, and they were charging lots of money, so that didn't come off, but on the bright side I didn't have my DVDs for 2 days. I haven't watched S4 since it aired and I really need them for research purposes.

* * *

"_I can't believe I'm doing this."_

"_Who are these master spies?"_

"_I'm pregnant." _

"_Nobody kills him but me."_

* * *

"What do you mean, you were flashing?"

"Exactly what it sounds like, General," said Chuck calmly. "At some point in my–sorry, Carina, _our_– mission, the Intersect glasses failed, and the download didn't take. I wasn't aware of it until that night in the restaurant. My immediate response was to take the menu to my partner."

"Who decided that taking you to Moscow was the safest course of action?"

Carina was used to taking heat for the things she did, but she wasn't about to take it for something she didn't do. "No, General, I was driving Chuck here to get him under cover until Manoosh could figure out what went wrong."

"Moscow is not on the way, Agent Miller."

"That's my fault, General," said Chuck. "I dialed the number on the menu while she was driving."

Diane Beckman noted the little shifts of posture on all her inset screens. "I trust I would not be the first to inform you of the stupidity of such a move." She got varying flavors of 'yes, ma'am' from everyone on her screen except Manoosh and Chuck himself. "You are not a spy, Mr. Bartowski. Intersect skills and good luck are no substitute. This will not happen again."

"No, ma'am."

"I am willing to overlook the incident for three reasons. First, you had a member of the team with you at all times, as per protocol. Second, you actually pulled it off. Congratulations. I'm glad to see those C-and-C lessons are having a good effect, although it's not what I would have chosen as a graduation exercise."

"I pulled off, sorry Carina, _we_ pulled off the rescue, General, but we failed to retrieve my mother's file."

"Chuck–" said Sarah, in the tone of someone who's said the same thing very often.

Beckman lifted a finger, and Sarah stopped talking. "The mission failed, Mr. Bartowski, you did not. You chose to save your team from an indefensible position, sacrificing a goal of great personal importance to do so. The most hardened agent would have trouble aborting a mission so close to completion. I hope your team appreciates that sacrifice, from someone who is not an agent." She scanned her insets, and got varying flavors of 'yes, ma'am' from everyone on her screen except Manoosh and Chuck himself. "As for the file in question, I'm sure your wife has pointed out to you that, since the building was a trap, the odds are very good that the file was a trap as well?"

"Yes, General."

"You should listen to your wife, Chuck."

Sarah ducked her head to hide her unprofessional reaction as her husband said "Yes, General."

"Good. Now, about the glasses. Manoosh, have you had a chance to examine them?"

"Yes, General. I assumed that the failure took place at the last point of contact. We tested the up- and downloads from those glasses in the lab with no negative effects and no failures. We then tested with the glasses directly, also with no problems."

"There's nothing in the glasses to account for the failure, General," said Ellie. The glasses were, after all, Manoosh's pet project. "We're concerned that this may be a failure in deployment."

"Meaning…?"

"Chuck and Carina spent months searching for his mother," said Sarah. "He was unaware of her Volkoff connection, but it drew their mission to Volkoff's attention."

"Marco had surveillance photos of Chuck outside some of our embassies. It's possible they spotted the glasses in transit and intercepted a pair," added Casey.

Manoosh nodded. "If they tried to copy the code, or decrypt it, the glasses would have gone into fail-safe mode, leaving just a stub program that did nothing."

"Yes, Mr. Depak, I remember those discussions now. Clearly we need to rethink the use of these glasses in long-term deployments, but in the short run they performed admirably. Thank you." She looked at all the windows. "Well, team, all in all, I have to say excellent work all around." Her hand twitched.

"Ah, General?" said Chuck hurriedly, aware of just how quickly she could kill the connection.

"Yes, Chuck?"

"What was the third reason you were willing to overlook the whole Moscow thing? You said there were three."

Casey grunted in disgust. When was Bartowski going to learn to let sleeping Generals lie?

Diane Beckman frowned at him, and smiled at Chuck. "You told me about it, of course." The screen went blank.

* * *

General Beckman stared at the blankness of her screen for a long time. He led, and they followed. They questioned, and he listened, and he made the call. _So close. So close._

* * *

"'I told her about it'? What was I supposed to do?"

Sarah shrugged. "Tell her about it, of course," she said, standing up. "Lie to your assets, sure, mislead your colleagues if you must, but never ever under any circumstances lie to your boss." The kitchen and breakfast awaited. "But you'd be amazed how creative some agents can be in the performance of their duties."

"More creative than Casey's footnotes?"

She sighed, putting on her apron. "They _are_ a study. Honestly, I think you got a pass simply because you didn't try anything." She brandished her spatula. "But like she said, don't do it again."

He crossed his heart. "Officially sanctioned missions only."

_Like he'd ever have any._ "I can live with that."

* * *

The doors opened on Mozart, and closed on silence. "You summoned me, Alexei?" She was always careful with her choice of words.

"Frost," he rumbled, he growled, he hummed. It was any of those things, it was all of those things, a multidimensional voice that still fell short of expressing the man using it. "Explain to me the failure at the factory."

The woman called Frost paused, gathering her thoughts, and he waited, patiently. "We misunderstood their goals, developed our forces in the wrong places." Volkoff was a chess player, he would know what she meant. "What looked like a queen sacrifice turned out to be a trap, and Marco fell into it. Only the building's programming retrieved a stalemate."

"A _stalemate_!" roared Volkoff. He spun in his chair and leaned over his desk, his face inches from hers, but she didn't flinch. Not Frost. "They forced us to knock the board off the bloody table! That's no way to win."

"No, Alexei."

"Have you eaten yet?" he asked solicitously.

She didn't blink at the sudden shift in tone or topic. "No, I haven't. You?"

He sank back into his chair, grumbling. "I had a whole menu planned, Chicken Kiev, green beans almondine, some wine, the perfect meal for an international incident with a few dead agents on top but now…?" He raised a hand, let it fall. "What goes with failure?"

"I'll ask in the kitchen." She changed her voice, to sound upbeat. "It wasn't a total failure, Alexei. We have faces, and some names to go with them."

"Mister Charles," said Volkoff, rolling the words across his tongue as if tasting them and not liking it very much. "Bring me Marco."

"He's dead, Alexei, there were no survivors," said Frost, as if bringing a weather report. "He gave me the name just before he died."

"I know," said Volkoff, pressing a button on his computer. A recording played on the screen, a video with a woman and three men in a room. One man was Marco, the woman was Frost. They listened together as the interview played out, Marco's final "Why?" answered only by her bullet.

He turned in his chair. "Anything to say, Frost?"

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, called up an app, hit play. She slid the phone to him on his desk as they listened to the same interview play, Marco's final "Why?" and her response, followed by a bullet.

"Only you, Frost?" he asked mildly. "Seems a mite…selfish, don't you think?" He pushed her phone back to her.

She picked it up and pocketed it. "He wants me, I want him back. I'm tempted to let him find me, just to see what happens."

"Absolutely not, you're far too important to me to risk losing you." He gestured at his computer, with the edited video. "Especially with traitors in my ranks."

"I understand." Whoever bugged her meeting with Marco didn't plan on her bugging it herself. Too bad. Whoever it was forgot the cardinal rule. You can cheat, steal, kill, but never lie to the boss. Tomorrow morning Moscow police would have a new unsolved murder on their hands. "I'll have the kitchens send up something cold."

Not as cold as his eyes. "Very appropriate."

* * *

"Good night, sis." The happiness in Chuck's face and voice was genuine but short-lived, fading faster the further they got from his sister's house. "Was that weird or what?"

"Very weird."

"I know, right. The size of a walnut and he's planning her college transcript!"

"Right, a walnut." She got into the car.

He ran around to the other side. "Or his, eventually, but right now it's a 'her'. Did you know that? All babies start out as girls and some morph into boys as they develop?"

"I…don't really think too much about babies, Chuck."

"Oh, believe me, I know. For a long time I couldn't even imagine getting a woman to talk to me, much less–"

"Chuck."

_Um, uh…_"And then I found you, a rare woman, smart and perceptive enough to see my true worth beneath this nebbishy façade." He paused for breath, flashed her a smile. "Better?"

She roused herself to smile at him. "A good save."

He turned the key. "I almost feel sorry, leaving her alone with him. He's a little gung-ho on the baby care, isn't he?"

She stared at her hands. "A little."

He pulled out into the street. "And here we got married at almost exactly the same time, it's no surprise he'd wonder about us."

She looked out the window. "No surprise at all."

She was upset. Talking about babies upset her and he should have noticed, should have shielded her from Devon's enthusiasm. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Chuck, can we just…_not_ talk about this right now?"

He stopped at the corner. "Sure, Sarah. Anything you want. It's just that I remember how long it took you just to unpack, the last thing in the world I want is to–"

She turned to look at him, frowning fiercely. "Why would you bring that up now?"

"Why would I bring what up?"

"You remember my unpacking? You said you understood."

His voice went up an octave. "I _do_ understand, and I don't care. I only care about you."

"You said it wasn't weird."

He started to sweat, glad he was driving. "It _isn't_ weird. You're a spy, you travel a lot, you need to be ready to go at a moment's notice, of course it's not weird! We both just spent the better part of half a year living out of a suitcase. If you're weird, I'm just as weird."

* * *

"It's totally weird, isn't it?" He really wasn't supposed to use this phone but this was an emergency.

"Well, not anymore, Chuck," said Morgan. The sound of a clicking pen carried clearly over the phone. "Listen to Doctor Morgan. She took a while doing it, but she unpacked. She made the leap. That's a good thing."

Ellie's voice came over the speaker. "Chuck, we're ready."

Chuck began to relax."That's great news."

"But obviously that's not your Achilles heel," continued Morgan.

Relaxation time over. "My what?" No answer. "Morgan, my what?" He checked his phone, saw no bars at all.

"Upload commencing."

* * *

"I'm packed and ready to go, General," said Carina. A mission in Milan, during Fashion Week? She'd go _naked!_ In fact, maybe she already had, but her memory was still spotty on that one.

"Your readiness for this mission doesn't surprise me in the slightest, Agent Miller," said Beckman impassively. "Need I remind you that you are going to Milan to investigate Miss Stefanova's career as an arms merchant for Volkoff Industries, not to steal a march on next year's look? If it weren't for Colonel Casey's lamentable history with high fashion I'd be keeping you here, safe from temptation. I'd almost rather send Chuck in your place."

"Yeah, Casey," Carina smiled at him. "I've heard of fashion victims before, but never fashion killers."

"That won't be necessary, ma'am," said Sarah, over Casey's melancholy grunt. _An officially sanctioned mission?_ She had to keep those away from Chuck at all costs, she'd given her word.

"I know it won't, Agent Bartowski," said the General, pinning her with a glare. "One of your jobs will be to keep her on the strait and narrow, as long as it isn't a runway. Good luck, team."

Carina ran from the room, back to her apartment to get some items to donate. Those poor models, condemned to only next year's trends.

"Yeah, good luck, Bartowski," said Casey, as soon as the screen was black. "You'll need it, having to make her keep it in her pants, while hubby dear is home, carefully studying all of Miss Maxim's photos for their national security implications."

"Hiyo!"

"Chuck!"

"What is that, a bikini? I thought it was a burqa…"

She glared at the insulated door. "Keep him out of trouble, Casey."

The big man shrugged. "Easy to do while he's in bunker-land. I just have to go and shoot Grimes. He's been in a relationship for five minutes and he's already a marriage counselor."

Morgan was giving Chuck marriage advice? Her mouth went dry, her hands twitched.

"Don't worry, Bartowski, I got your back, even here on the home front. Whatever Achilles Heel you have, I've got some Casey shoes for it." He smirked at her freak-out face. "How's that for fashion?"

* * *

**A/N2 **This episode and the ones that follow will be very difficult to fit into the nine2five framework. Sarah's already unpacked, and has been for a year. Please drop me a line and tell me how you think it's going.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N **In order to keep with my plan for the Gretas, I had to make the second one a female, much as I liked Isaiah Mustafah's take on the role. I also have to get Morgan out of that restaurant job and into someplace I can use him better.

* * *

"_What do you mean, you were flashing?"_

"_Officially sanctioned missions only."_

"_He's a little gung-ho on the baby care, isn't he?"_

"_How's that for fashion?"_

* * *

Chuck was nowhere near Milan.

After all the events in Russia, Beckman decided that it would be best to keep his face from being seen by any of Volkoff's operatives, so he wasn't allowed in the van, or even the country. While his wife and her partner were flying across the Atlantic, he was doing a thorough, frame-by-frame, pixel-by-pixel examination of the surveillance photos taken of Miss Stefanova.

Unfortunately none of those pixels held the slightest clue as to her employer's plans. As a professional model, she wore a variety of swimwear, and the backgrounds were beaches from all over the world, at all times of day and year. It was a bust.

Beyond that, the dailies were also uninteresting, no references to Mr. Charles anywhere. A few littler items to be passed on. The Ring was big, the DSL could have been big, and Volkoff might yet become big, but for right now, all was quiet on the Western front.

Time for lunch. His Intersect duties done, it was time to put on his analyst hat, and get ready for the time when his team lead would need his input. Given the time difference, she wouldn't need him until mid-afternoon somewhere. Those high-end parties started fashionably late and ran fashionably later.

The screens showed an empty hall, his favorite kind. He stepped out of his office and made sure it was firmly closed and locked.

"Mr. Bartowski?"

His head dropped, hitting the door jamb. "Ow!" He raised his hand to rub at the spot, turning to see who had called him. He looked up. Female. And up some more. Very tall female. African-American. "You're a tall one, aren't you?"

"I can say the same about you," she said. "Thank God. I live in a world of tiny men." She stuck out a hand. "You can call me Greta."

"Another one?" said Chuck. "Is there a school, or something? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, and if it really is your name I completely apologize, but I just met another girl, woman, _lady_ named Greta, and I have to say neither of you fit the model I would normally associate with a name of Northern European origin."

"Yeah, she said I wouldn't get a word in edgewise. " Greta smiled, like she was out of practice. "I'm not here to chat you up in the hallway, Mr. Bartowski, I'm here to train."

Against the Intersect? "And they sent you to me? The closest I ever came to training was virtual boot camp in a video game."

She nodded. "That's why they sent me to you. You're the acknowledged expert in the building in Virtual Enhancement Techniques."

_I am?_ "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"It is. I hope you won't mind taking a complete novice under your wing, teach me the right moves."

_Oh God, a newbie._

She must have seen the hesitation on his face. "Please, Mr. Bartowski. Help me. You're my only hope."

How could he refuse Greta Organa? "Fine. Let me call my friend Morgan. We'll teach you the ways of Call of Duty, so you can come with us to Alderaan."

As they left together, she turned to him and asked, "Where?"

* * *

Carina sauntered down the stairs, fashionably late in a world where fashionable lateness was an art form. As expected, there was Sarah, practically screaming 'Undercover Agent' with her strapless Versace and an untouched flute of champagne. "Tonight a school night?" she murmured into her throat mike.

"Wouldn't want to cramp your style," replied Sarah. She made a languid gesture. "Oh, and by the way, that corner of the room could use a good sweep."

"Do I look like a maid?" Carina snagged a flute of her own. Maids don't do that.

Sarah turned away. "You look like a feather-duster."

"Can I help it if I'm ahead of the curve?" She took a sip, and did a twirl on the landing. Not too much of one, these folks hadn't earned the floor show. "These will be the 'in' thing soon."

"On ostriches."

"They're fake."

Sarah smiled. "'Cause that makes it better."

Carina was bored. "You spotted our mark yet?" If Sarah was going to ruin the evening with work they could at least get on with it.

Sarah sighed into her mike. "Not yet. I'm afraid we're going to have to mingle."

Carina started scanning the room from her place on the stairs. "You? Afraid?"

"I'll be seen with you."

"Don't worry, I'll try to deflect a little of the admiration your way. The least I can do."

"Feel free to not do the least you can do," said Sarah. At least with Carina as a distraction she might be able to get some work done. The sooner this mission was over the sooner she could get back to–

"I see her," said Carina.

"Where?"

"At your ten, fifteen yards, or meters, I guess, since we're in Europe. Slinky sequined dress, not off the rack but certainly not haut couture either."

Sarah shook her head, not bothering to say a word. "Any weapons or guards?"

"Well, there are a few people who haven't stopped and basked. None of them appear to be watching _her_, though." She continued on down the stairs to grace Sarah with her presence. "Maybe they're gay."

Sarah clinked glasses with her. "It's Fashion Week, Carina. Everyone here has to have a pretty high tolerance for strutting divas."

Carina had, of course, kept her target in view. "She's not strutting."

"I wasn't talking about her." Sarah turned, and they ambled leisurely through the crowd, not directly at the target but on a course that would eventually intersect hers, if they made three or four circuits of the room.

Not that Carina was willing to wait that long. She had no problem with the seeing-and-being-seen aspect of this mission, but the mission part sucked all the joy out of it. "So what do you think?"

Sarah took a little closer look, and noticed the sequined clutch, almost invisible against the all-too-revealing sequined dress. "Bag."

Carina put her empty glass on a tray, and snagged another as several waiters made it their business to let her see them. "Yeah, she has seen better days."

"A-_hem_."

"Oh, you mean a real bag." Carina flashed a glance. "Yeah, looks big enough." She handed her glass to her partner. "Be right back."

Sarah settled in to watch. Either Carina would get what she went for, or she'd get shot down in flames. Either one was a win in her book.

* * *

An alert signal woke Frost from her nap. She never got a full night's sleep, and hadn't for years. Alexei's interests took up too much of her time, and her own interests took up more, so she'd long mastered the art of sleeping when she could and hitting the ground running. She checked the source of the alert, a gamer tag that hadn't been used in months, suddenly activated. Han-fan and Chewie-fan were back together again, and she smiled, feeling sorry for their–who was Greta123? Fortunately the CIA didn't bug agents' residences, that left the way clear for her to worm her way into the webcam on the computer. The two men looked less than happy, but the woman sitting between them was ecstatic. "Oh, Chuck."

She shut down the worm and went back to bed.

* * *

Carina strutted right up to her target, not bothering to hide her presence as she reached for a cheese cube with one hand and reached for the bag with the other.

Miss Stefanova suddenly turned, alert for strangers approaching from any angle in an environment like this. Her bag swung away and something else entirely found its way under Carina's questing fingers. "Excuse me!" said Sofia, shocked. "Who do you think you are?"

Carina moved her hand–the other one–and placed the cheese cube slowly in her mouth, on her tongue. She chewed it slowly, reveling in the pure oral satisfaction, as she considered her reply. "I'm the one woman in this room everyone will be watching this week. You?"

"Your hand is still touching my perfection."

Carina looked down. "Why yes, so it is." She looked into Sofia's eyes, saw no compromises there. "An accident. Happy accident?" That hard gaze said there were no happy accidents in Sofia's life. "No? Too bad." Carina pulled her hand back slowly, up and over Miss Stefanova's hip.

"I'm flattered," said Sofia, not sounding flattered. She looked away for a second. "But it seems you've already got one admirer, and if she's as plastic as your feathers, I'm sure you'll be much happier with her." She smirked and walked away to the bar.

Carina took another cube and sauntered back to Sarah.

"That went well," said Sarah, and she opened her mouth.

Carina placed the cube on her tongue. "The night is young."

* * *

Later, at the debrief.

"'Virtual Enhancement Techniques'?"

Greta restrained herself from shrugging, under her superior-and-instructor's eye. "The other Greta already used the dinner ploy. I had to engage other interests."

"Yes, and very quick thinking it was, too," said Agent Montgomery. "And how did it play out?"

Hard to tell if she blushed. "Not well, sir."

* * *

"_Telescope, give me a sitrep!"_

Sarah walked away from the party, the lobby, the whole damn building. "The target left an explosive surprise in her bag, Eagle-Eye. Microscope threw it into a fountain and it fizzled."

"_She made you?"_

"Or she really didn't like my hand on her 'perfection'." Carina rolled her eyes.

Must be something wrong with the signal. _"Her what?"_

"Nothing, Eagle-Eye," said Sarah. "We're heading upstairs."

* * *

Roan felt a headache coming on. Being called a 'noob' by a tiny man was the high point of Greta's report. And what kind of insult was 'noob', anyway? Not an ethnic slur. _Charles wouldn't associate with one of _that_ ilk. _"'Not well' is a bit of an understatement, isn't it? Did it ever occur to you to _lose_?"

She always tried to do her best, and to get better. "No, sir."

"Next time try to keep your competitive instincts in check, 'Greta'. Men are much more gracious in victory than they are in defeat." He barely noticed as she shuffled out of his office. Neither brunettes nor gamers had the desired effect on this subject. Valuable lessons learned, but at this rate he wasn't going to graduate anybody. _What is the key to you, Charles? _

* * *

Sarah and Carina waited behind the dresses filling the closet from side to side, listening as the great, ponderous, hulking footsteps of the burly bodyguard faded away into the main room. The man hadn't seen them, which was no surprise. Sofia Stefanova was an exception to the rule that spies always travelled light. It made Sarah's 'weird unpacking thing' seem doubly weird by comparison, and she was doubly glad Chuck wasn't here to notice it.

Why had it taken so long? Being a fashion model was Stefanova's cover, and these closets they stood in sold that cover very well. She'd been Chuck's cover girlfriend for years, and his wife after that, but the closet her things didn't occupy would have given her away immediately.

Miss Stefanova walked into her closet, bringing Sarah's thoughts firmly to the here-and-now. Neither of the two spies moved a muscle as Volkoff's agent stripped off her dress, folding it neatly into a case, followed by her underthings, not so neatly deposited into a laundry hamper on the way into the bath. When the water started, Carina stuck her head out and looked into the other room. "Translucent," she whispered. "Better than nothing." If the showering woman turned around she'd see something moving in her closet, even if she couldn't tell who.

"I'll get the guard," said Sarah.

Carina nodded, and went back to the safe with their electronic lockpick. As the numbers counted down she heard Sarah say something to the man outside in a thick Russian accent that sounded nothing like Stefanova's, but the guy apparently bought it. Was he deaf or something? The lockpick stopped, and the safe clicked open. Inside were the bullets they sought and Carina took them out, standing to put them into her secure pouch.

"Don't move," a woman with a thick Russian accent from behind her. Probably not Sarah. She raised her hands.

"Turn around. Look at me."

Carina turned and looked. "Not seeing much. There's more and better every day in my bathroom mirror, honey."

Something heavy fell down in the other room, and Stefanova grabbed Carina as better protection against bullets than the air she was currently wearing, as Sarah ran into the room.

"You're kidding, right?" asked Carina mildly. "You do know she'll shoot right through me to get you, don't you?" _Just as well Chuck isn't here. S_he'd never do it then.

Sofia watched as Sarah's face hardened. Before she could shoot her red-haired prisoner, Sarah fired, and Carina moved in tandem, a true partner. Stefanova released her prisoner to save herself.

Sarah and Carina ran, rather than risk getting caught between Sofia with her guns, and the guard outside. They had what they needed. Sarah stood guard as Carina hooked the two of them up to their climbing ropes, in case Sofia aaand there she was. _Keep moving._ Sarah fired again, and Miss Stefanova gave her a clear view of her bottom as she dove for cover.

"You call that perfection?" asked Sarah. Then she and Carina leapt from the balcony and were gone.

* * *

**A/N2** I would have loved to keep Morgan's demonstration to Beckman of the Buy More's unbelievable quality, one of the shining moments of the series. Maybe I'll come up with something like it later on.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N **This chapter's a short one. In canon the last segment of this episode was all about her unpacking, and Devon's fears about the crew at the new Buy More, none of which apply here. So this chapter fills in some of the blank space between Sarah's "Get some clothes on" and them walking into Castle in the next scene. Part of it is because the story has started talking to me, as I'd hoped, and I need to start laying some of the groundwork for later events now. I see this season as being more about Sarah and her development. Last season I put Chuck into balance, now it's her turn.

* * *

"_You can call me Greta."_

"_I'm afraid we're going to have to mingle."_

"_Telescope, give me a sitrep!"_

"_You call that perfection?"_

* * *

Sarah leaned her head against the window, staring at the clouds. Vast and shapeless, she used to hate clouds, especially when looking at them from above like this. Blocking her view of the world below, a world of lines and right angles, farms and streets and all the works of man laid out like a map or a puzzle. She was good at puzzles, and she found maps comforting.

She'd come to like clouds more, since she met Chuck. They had funny animal shapes in them, like his hair. Or they could. Unpredictable, they could be anything. Just like her.

Not tonight. Tonight they were barely visible, dark hills, the kind enemy agents liked to hide behind. Her hands were moving in her lap. _Round and round and round she goes…_

"Hey, partner," said Carina cheerfully, wobbling up the aisle even though the plane was quite steady. "Peso for your thoughts."

Like anyone could think with Carina around. She looked away from the window to frown at her friend. "A peso?"

"Seems to be about all they're worth." She fell into the neighboring chair. "I said to myself, Carina–"

"You talk to yourself in the third person?"

Carina snorted. "Like I'm going to let all of me go to waste on _you_ lot. Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted, I said 'Carina, your bestie over there looks ready to practice her parachuting without a parachute. Offering her one of these fine mojitos you just made'–what a lovely word, mo-hee-toe. Anyway… where was I?"

Sarah turned back to the window, not that Carina was one to take a hint. "Drunk off your ass at thirty thousand feet. You do know that those things are three times as potent at high altitude?"

Carina took three sips in one. "So I've heard. Your friend Hannah is just a font of useless airplane trivia."

_Not so useless._ Sarah and Hannah had bonded over a bar in first class as Hannah was on her way to Paris to clean out her desk, just before the mission Sarah was on had gone sideways as usual. Hannah now ran the LA office with an iron fist, keeping the real agents in line and adhering to protocol. She could really use Hannah now, not a Carina being even more Carina than usual. "Did you take your pill?"

"Yes, Mother. And I'm only offering half a peso for those thoughts now."

She'd have given them away free if it meant she'd stop thinking them. Not that she knew what they were, exactly. They were lost in the clouds, waiting until just the right moment to strike. She kept a careful watch as her hands twisted in her lap. _Round and round and round they go…_ "Did you really mean what you said back there?"

"I don't suppose you could try to be just a _little_ more specific? There's a lot of back there back there, unless you're talking about _my_ perfection, in which case I've got just exactly enough back there." She settled even more perfectly into her seat, took another three sips.

"Did you really think I would shoot through you, just to bring down a bad guy?"

Carina shrugged. "Sure. I would have."

"You would?"

"Sure. Whatever it takes to get the job done. Not that we needed anything like that today. We were up against a pro, so we didn't have to." Pros knew when to cut their losses, when to kill their hostages and when to push them away. Amateur kidnappers are the worst. Suddenly Carina started to giggle.

Sarah could use a bit of humor in her life right now. "What's so funny?"

"I just figured out what you're so upset about," said Carina as she laughed. She waved her hand back and forth between them. "You and me. We came out of the closet together back in Milan!"

Sarah sighed. Not humor to anyone except Carina. "You got me."

"That's what _she _said!" Carina shook with a sudden convulsion of laughter."Crap, now you made me spill my drink."She started brushing at the glop, making it worse.

"Probably for the best," stated Sarah, watching the reflection in the window. It wasn't pretty. "This way most of it stays outside you."

"Like I want to reek of mint and lime when we go report to the General."

"So change."

"Like I want to wear ostrich feathers when we go report to the General."

Sarah started bonking her head against the glass. "All your clothes have ostrich feathers on them?"

"It's the next big thing!"

Sarah sighed again. "There's a small laundry aft. You have to go past the bedroom, so you've probably never seen it. You'll just have to prance around in your underwear until your clothes are done."

"What makes you think–?"

No, of course she wasn't. Suddenly she was really, really tired of Carina's antics. "Then stay back there, then."

"Fine, jeez, I'm going, Miss pooty-porper," said Carina, getting up from her seat. "See if I try and cheer _you_ up ever again."

Sarah watched her go. "You promise?"

* * *

Morgan stopped by table seven. "Good evening, Colonel, Alex. What brings you around here?"

Casey cast his gaze around the restaurant. "Just taking my daughter out to dinner. Wanted to see what kind of a ship you ruin here, Grimes."

_Another dating test._ "I trust the service has been satisfactory so far," he said at his most assistant-managerial. He wasn't going to snap his fingers and demand the best for them, every guest deserved and got the best at his restaurant, but just standing here a few extra moments wouldn't hurt anything.

Casey's "Can't complain" seemed at odds with Alex' "It's fine, Morgan", but only to people who didn't know Casey. "Your wait staff is certainly efficient," he continued. "You sure they're not all CIA plants on some kind of covert assignment?"

Morgan snapped his fingers. "Busted." Alex laughed, always a pleasure to hear. "Wait a minute. 'CIA plants'? Why CIA plants?"

Casey smirked. "Because obviously, numb-nuts, if they were _NSA_ plants they'd be the management." He looked Morgan up and down.

Morgan ran his hands over the lapels of his jacket nervously. "Well, I'd, uh, I'd better get going. Other guests to say hello to. Wouldn't want to give the wrong impression."

Alex smiled and nodded. She was out with her dad, seeing Morgan too was a bonus. "It's okay, Morgan, we'll talk later."

Her fond gaze made Morgan smile, but only as long as it took him to catch Casey's not-so-fond glower. "Yeah, 'Morgan'. What she said."

* * *

Sarah stood in the door of the little sleeping compartment. _She looks so different when she's asleep._ Like a girl, not an agent. She also looked cold, all scrunched up under a sheet. The alcohol in her system kept her warm for a while, but not now.

Sarah got her friend a blanket, watched as she spread out under it, no longer so cold. _That's better._

* * *

Morgan did another walk-through, as the evening got later and the guests started to dwindle. It all still looked perfect, though. If a busload of nuns from Peoria suddenly pulled up in his parking lot, he'd be ready for them. Not that he had a parking lot, but still…_Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Colonel John Casey._ Not that he knew what that meant, but he knew Casey didn't smoke a pipe. _Just can't admit I'm good at something, can you, _dad_?_

As he made his rounds toward his office, he heard a noise, followed by an 'oops', followed by a 'here, let me get you a new one'.

"What was _that_ all about?" said someone male.

He turned back to the floor. One of the busboys was walking away, but he was more concerned with his guests, few enough at this hour. Most of them were looking at one of the other tables, so Morgan looked too. The woman was staring at the bread as if it had aliens in it, while the man stared at his soda. The straw still had the little bit of paper on the end, and Morgan knew he'd been drinking from it just a minute ago.

They signaled for their bill.

_What the hell?_

* * *

Sarah's key didn't unlock the door.

Good. That meant Chuck was sticking to the new security protocols. Leaving the key in the knob, she pressed the button for the doorbell, but no bell sounded. Instead a panel popped open on the door, with a screen, showing a textbox and a virtual keypad. Words formed above the textbox.

_Green eggs and ham._

She liked puzzles but this one was just too, too easy. She typed in 'Sam I am' and the door unlocked. Inside the door she pressed her hand against a decorative mirror, deactivating the tranq gas emitters that would have knocked everyone out if uzi-toting terrorists had somehow forced her to open the door. A thermal grid showed only two heat sources in the house, one large one in the bedroom and one small one…in the kitchen? She put her bag down, reached behind her for her gun.

The house wasn't completely dark, of course, light from the street came in, carefully shifted three inches over by the refracting glass in the windows. She edged around the furniture, around the counter, and–oh.

Not a terrorist. Her husband had bought a new little crockpot, and put some dinner in it for her. She lifted the lid and sniffed. She took the handy-dandy spoon and sampled. Ham, potato, cream sauce, onion. Wonderful.

Breakfast.

Right now she knew what she needed and dinner was not it. She replaced the lid and turned off the pot, then went straight to her bed and the most wonderful man in the world. As she slid in next to him, his arm went around her and his fingers tapped the familiar pattern.

_Green_, she tapped back. Just like the eggs, or was it the eggs and the ham that were green, she could never remember. Comfortable against her husband's warmth she had a fleeting thought about her suitcase, still sitting by the door, unfinished business.

_Finish it tomorrow. _

* * *

**A/N2 **I had some ideas while PMing with ygbsm (I respond to all comments left, hint, hint) about the structure of the story, and how I might need to make some changes. In the season 3 of Chuck there was a great story that just needed a little polishing by me to make it shine. In S4 the individual episodes are pretty good, but the overall story of the season is missing. I started thinking of the season as a collection of pearls, strung badly. My thought is to restring the pearls, put the episodes in a different order, perhaps. It's not my preferred method, we all know I'd rather face the challenge of rewriting each episode as it came, but S4 is really 2 seasons in one, and I'm thinking they could stand to be better integrated. So some of the back eleven will be interspersed with the front thirteen, to make the takedown of Volkoff and redemption of Mary a better story.

Wish me luck, please.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N **Last chapter was the setup, and this chapter is...not the resolution. Sarah's journey is just getting started.

* * *

"_Peso for your thoughts."_

"_That's what she said!" _

"_Your wait staff is certainly efficient."_

"_Why CIA plants?"_

* * *

"Sarah, wake up."

Sarah's eyes opened and she gasped. Chuck held her as she looked around wildly. _No, not wildly_. She was seeking targets. The morning light illuminated their bedroom, carefully arranged to minimize the number of possible hiding places for enemy commandos, and she sagged against him as she verified their safety. "Bad dream?" he asked gently, as if he didn't already know the answer.

The label steadied her. She nodded.

"A memory?" She had far too many of those.

She couldn't shake her head, not in that position. "Nuh-uh."

"Tell me about it?" He'd held her through many bad nights in their time together, but he usually didn't have to call her out of them. A simple hug, or speaking her name, was enough most times. He couldn't imagine what she could dream up that would be worse than the horrors she'd already gone through.

She hugged him tightly, but didn't say a word.

"Sarah." What would Dr. Dreyfus say? Something slow, steady, and calming, sure, but Chuck didn't feel any of those things right now, and less so with every second of her silence. "Sarah?" _Lub-dub-lub-dublubdublubdub–_

"We had children."

_Lubdublubdub-lub-dub-lub-dub–_ "Doesn't sound like a nightmare to me."

"I ended up taking a water pistol to a firefight."

Chuck's brain froze. "Oh."

She pushed herself up and stared at him. "That's all you've got to say? 'Oh'?"

He forced a smile on his face. "I…remember I was threatened by a man with a water pistol once."

She sagged, but not all the way back down. "Chuck–"

"You remember him, that wacko genius Laszlo, tried to blow up the Santa Monica pier with a nerd herder?"  
She took a deep breath, letting her forehead settle down against his. "What about him, Chuck?" she asked, not up for this particular puzzle right now.

"I'm just saying that Laszlo, crazy psychopathic genius parts notwithstanding, was a pretty outside-the-box thinker. Sometimes a water pistol _is_ the right answer. Although for the life of me I can't figure out why he put water in it."

She snorted, a puff of air against his skin. "So what's the question?"

"That, little–"

She gripped his hair and pulled him to a stop. "You better not call me a grasshopper."

His brown eyes stared into her blue ones, not quite wincing. "There's nothing else that goes with 'little' that isn't derogatory."

She let go. "That's because 'little' is derogatory all by itself."

"Not if whatever you're talking about's _supposed_ to be little."

"If it's supposed to be little, then it's just right, isn't it?"

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is."

"Well look, this isn't an argument."

"Yes, it–wait, what?" She must be tired.

He gave her a smug grin. "Exactly."

She settled back down to wait out the alarm. "You're such a goof."

"Who's a bigger goof, the goof or the goof who follows him?"

*Yawn* "What a terrible thing to say about Morgan," she mumbled.

He smiled, pressing 1-2-1-2 against her back. Mission accomplished. "Good night, wife."

* * *

Sarah sat in the breakfast nook, eating her reheated scalloped potatoes and ham for breakfast and staring at her suitcase by the door. She should have unpacked it by now but something made her keep her distance. Her husband was showering and singing and that thing wasn't letting her enjoy it.

Finally she got up and took it outside again, throwing it into the back seat of her car. Then she went back inside and finished her breakfast in peace.

* * *

Casey was getting ready for another day of being ready. His evening with Alex went about as well as he could have expected. He had to work at being accepted into her life, but he was the only 'family' she had out here, and their respective professions gave them some common interests. Even Grimes was helpful, in his unique, back-handed, unhelpful way.

He noticed his phone light blinking, which it hadn't been when he got in. Someone had called in the middle of the night. Someone had left a message.

Talk about unhelpful.

* * *

Ellie was smiling as he came in the door of her lab area. "You're looking cheerful, sis," said Chuck.

"Well, I hate to say it, Chuck, but I'm glad to be at work and not at home, right now." She traded in the smile for a frown. "I mean, I love Devon to death but he treats me like I'm made of spun glass. I can't take another twenty-seven weeks of that."

Chuck plopped himself down on his usual chair automatically. "Did you give him your 'caves and fields' speech?"

She started with her usual biometrics. "I don't think that would help, Chuck. He's already bought and assembled two bassinets, and three white noise machines. He's coming unwrapped."

"The only thing he's coming unwrapped from is your little finger, El. Don't be Pregnant You, just be You. And remember that the Buy More needs the receipt to give you a full refund."

* * *

"Now aren't you glad I didn't shoot you?" asked Sarah into the air near her speaker phone, after their rather depressing briefing ended. At least she could get her breakfast dishes done.

"I just can't believe she played us like that." Carina flung a knife at her dartboard. Bulls-eye, of course. Not what she'd rather be doing with a suddenly-unnecessary morning, but Davis was on duty.

"I can't believe we didn't see it coming." Sarah paused for the next _thunk! _before continuing_._ "The most obvious trick in the world is to separate the lock from the key and we missed it."

"We didn't _miss_ it, we didn't even know it could be done." Carina crossed to her board and snatched the knives out. "Who makes bullets in sections, anyway? Isn't that like, the whole point of a bullet?"

"I think you're really talking about cartridges, and technically speaking a bullet is just a part of a cartridge, so congratulations. You've just managed to be both right and wrong at the same time."

"Is Chuck still there?" Carina was suspicious. That was Chuck-snark, not Sarah-snark.

"You know he's not. He's at work early, supporting Interpol looking for a master arms merchant and smuggler last seen in Milan."

_Thunk! _"You don't think she still is?"

Water rings on the counter. _I don't _think_ so._ "Would you be?"

Carina laughed. _Thunk! _"I'd be packed up and way the hell out of–out of–"

"Dodge."

No thunk. "Packed."

Sarah scraped at something with a fingernail. "What?"

"Packed. She was packed."

She needed something stronger, and took a knife out of the drying rack. "If you call one dress packed." Actually, Carina _would_ call 'one dress' packed.

"But why that dress? A closet full of clothes and she saves the one she's just been seen in?"

The knife edge popped it off, something small, circular, and crystalline. "Sequins," said Sarah.

"What better way to slip some chips through Customs? As part of a collection from a fashion show."

"She's still in Milan." Until tomorrow night, when the event ended and all the participants scattered to the winds.

"I hope you're still packed."

Suddenly Sarah felt right for the first time that day. She threw the knife into the message board _thunk! _and watched it quiver. "You have to ask?"

* * *

The young doorman pulled open the heavy door for the two beautiful Americans with every sign of pleasure in the task.

Carina smiled at him, pulling a feather from her skirt and handing it to him as they passed through. "About time," she muttered to her companion.

"Please, you're griping about having to open three doors?"

"You owe me two."

"I told you–"

"Did you know, you used to be a con artist as a young woman?" Not that she took much on faith anyway. Carina looked around the packed ballroom, with all its various entrances. "Which collection?"

"My spy senses tell me it's that one," said Sarah, pointing at an arch with two burly thugs in front of it.

"You want to get this one too?"

Sarah smiled sharply. "I've got it. Those are the two I owe you."

Carina watched as Sarah sauntered over to the two men, allowed them to slobber all over her hands, and then…chatted.

* * *

"I really am sorry to have misled you two gentleman," said Sarah, dropping her accent and removing her glasses. "I'm not really a model, but I do need to get through that door behind you, so I do hope you'll do me a favor and let me by." The two men didn't change expression as the both crumpled into thuggish heaps at her feet.

"Thank you so much."

Carina joined her as she drew the curtains on the mess. "Okay, spill."

Sarah held up her hands. "Chuck added some false fingerprints to the FRODO, with a coating of tranq juice on the outside." She went down the short hall.

"Clever," said Carina. "But next time I may not be here to open every door for your Highness, so tell him to put them in some gloves or something." She pointed at the knob. "After you."

Bags of clothes, racks of bags, hideously expensive and expensively hideous, destined to be worn once, twice if they were lucky, then auctioned off for charity and bartered progressively downward thereafter. The two agents worked their way through the collection quickly.

"Ah-ha," shouted Carina. "Here we go!"

"Good." Sarah stripped off her coat and pulled on the dress, but they weren't about to walk out there. Someone discovered the fallen guards and there weren't too many places to look.

"Quick," said Carina, "Through that door." No matter what, the chips had to be recovered.

Sarah went out as a small army came in, one of the smallest armies around, maybe five men. Four more than Carina, though.

* * *

"Carina!" shouted Sarah as the shooting started. A hammer cocked behind her, and she raised her hands.

"You look like the sort to buy off the rack," said Sofia.

* * *

The small army was very good, with dozens of kill shots scored in that tiny room. Unfortunately all of them were on the mannequins. The noise was absorbed by the dresses, and Carina knew no one would hear it over the sound of all the electro-pop music in the main ballroom.

She helped herself to the bar, a bo of metal that made quick work of four of the men, in her expert hands. The fifth, her giant bodyguard from the closet, had been watching, and snatched it away from her. He came closer, looming like the mountain he was. "You messed things up with Miss–" He stopped, blinking a bit. "Biss–" His face screwed up, making him even uglier than he already was. Carina dodged, as he sneezed right where her face would have been.

"You really should think about trading up," said Carina. "She's a pretty cold fish, if you ask me."

He came after her a second time. "You can't talk that way about by–Biss–" He stopped again, unable to see or to breathe, several sneezes forcing their way out of his mouth before Carina put him out of his misery. He snuffled a lot, but he was still breathing. She would save the real beating for her couturiere, he told her the ostrich feathers were _fake_! PETA would eat them alive.

Then the screaming started. Sarah!

Carina clambered over the men and debris, but the door wouldn't open, some stray bullet had hit the lock. So she clambered back over the men and debris, to get to the first door. She raced down the short hall, tripping over the two guards and plunging head first through the curtains into the well-lit hall, filled with paparazzi and their entourages.

No one noticed her.

Everyone was looking at the runway, and the two tall blondes in a life-or-death struggle on it. Sofia must have gotten in a few hits early, Carina noticed, but she wasn't getting any in now. No one had turned off the music and no one was going to as the two divas strutted their stuff. Even unarmed against her enemy's short knife, Sarah was dancing, and Sarah loved to dance.

A kick left Sofia Stefanova teetering on the brink, and Sarah moved in for the kill. Carina watched as Sarah screamed and leaped, only without the screaming, smiting her enemy with one blow. Silence fell over the room.

A camera flashed. Then another.

_Uh-oh._

* * *

They sat at the table, Sarah holding a bag of ice to her eye as General Beckman started a slide show of images from their mission in Milan. Well, technically, after their mission in Milan. Some had photos of a wild-eyed, snarling, bloody-faced blonde on them, but the face of Miss Stefanova's enemy was obscured by long yellow hair and some blood. Most of the photos and headlines were focused on Miss Stefanova, a giant in her field, but not a popular one. Only a few shots caught Sarah, but that was from behind, as she limped from the runway with Carina's support. The final image was a cover, focused more on Carina's retreating bottom than on Sarah, one of the few with an English cover banner: 'Ostrich. The Next Big Thing?'

"Excellent work in Milan, ladies, although next time I see I'll have to send Carina to keep Sarah off the runway." The slide show ended, and the screen returned to Beckman's smiling face. "You recovered the chips, the bullets, and the seller. You've dealt Volkoff a major blow, and saved the world of good taste from high fashion for another year, all while managing to preserve your cover. Sarah, I hope to see you looking better very soon."

The second the screen went black Carina burst out laughing. "What?" said Sarah.

"'She's mine, bitch'?"

"I had to say something. And what are you complaining about?" asked Sarah, sounding snuffly, but not from allergies, to ostrich or anything else. "Would you rather they were going on about 'Combat Chic' all over Europe?"

"What, like my fashion victory wouldn't have happened without you?" Carina stood up. "I'm almost tempted not to go shopping on your behalf, but I will anyway, to demonstrate my generosity of spirit."

"You promised not to cheer me up anymore."

Carina paused as she opened the door. "I lied."

* * *

Sarah opened her suitcase, and stared at the assortment of clothing crumpled up inside. Cover clothes for cover roles, but she couldn't tell which were which any more.

"Need some help?" asked Chuck, watching from the door.

She turned the case over, dumping everything out in a big messy heap. "Nope." She turned it back over again.

At the bottom a fold of cloth flapped open. Chuck pointed, as if the she wouldn't have noticed otherwise. "Hey, it's ripped."

"No, it's not." Sarah snuck two fingers inside and teased out a piece of paper stuck way back in the lining.

He came over to smile at the picture of them during a real moment in the middle of a cover moment. "That's amazing."

"No it's not," said Sarah. "I may not use the glasses anymore but that doesn't mean I don't like to have you near me. You're my home, Chuck." She stepped up and draped her arms around his neck.

"I know, and I'm glad," he said, putting a little kiss on the tip of her nose. "I'm just surprised, that's all. I had to marry you to get your real name out of you, and now here you are, carrying us into battle. You're getting to be more like a real warrior princess every day." He put another kiss on her forehead. "I've never been so glad to see Morgan proven wrong, I mean, I'm usually glad when Morgan's wrong, but–"

"Wrong about what?"

"About us," said Chuck, "About marriage, about life. He has this weird idea about relationships and Achilles Heels, that you find the weak spot just when you think you're at your strongest." He picked up the picture. "But not us." He tucked it up safely in the case, and left the room to continue whatever he'd been doing.

She took it back out again, staring at it for a long time.

* * *

**A/N2 **A bit more ambiguous than the show's ending. That's intentional.


End file.
